Coupon Euphoria

My college roommate was the first person I knew who was a big-time couponer. One of our local grocers tripled coupons on Wednesdays, so each week in preparation, she's clip whatever she could from the Sunday papers. I can still see her sitting on the floor in our apartment literally giggling in anticipation of the savings she'd get. After her shopping trip, she'd walk in the door with four or five sacks -- the paper ones, not the plastic ones most stores use now that hold just a handful of items -- for about $15.

She got a high out of it, and if I had ever been able to duplicate her success, I probably would've, too, but I never could.

What got me was that she would buy things like coffee and dog food, just because she had a coupon, while neither of us was a coffee drinker and we had no dog. She would give those items to other people she knew who could use it, but I never understood being able to get any kind of savings out of buying stuff you don't need.

After reading the first few chapters of Stephanie Wilson's The Coupon Mom's Guide to Cutting Your Grocery Bill in Half: The Strategic Shopping Method Proven to Slash Food and Drugstore Costs, I think that buying stuff you don't need actually factors in to making extreme couponing work and quite likely is a mental block to why I cannot get similar savings. After all of the cutting back my husband and I have done, I have trouble buying anything that isn't necessary, and a good 97 percent of the coupon circulars we get have items we don't buy, at least not very often anyway. For instance, I might see a coupon for butter. We use butter, but typically buy it only twice a year.

I do think, too, that part of the problem is that we have a limited variety of grocery stores, too. We have Walmart and three other grocers, one has a customer rewards program that gives customers stuff -- blenders, toasters, knickknacks, etc. -- not discounts, and neither of the others has any rewards program at all. Although it does offer double coupons one day a week. Shopping at Aldi has given us some savings, but I'd still like to do better.